Someone on another board said the hostage taker is in his 40s and well known to cops. That might be rubbish but it's a piece of scuttlebutt from a source that's better than Twitter.

The guy doesn't seem to have had a plan beyond popping a couple of bullet holes in the ceiling and forcing some scared workers to hold up his black flag in the window. After that, he clearly had no clue what to do and it took 8 hours for the cops to make contact with him.

My best guess says he's got some serious mental health issues that have not been improved by religion.